4000 Americans Killed in Iraq War Theatre

Four thousand Americans have died as of March 23, 2008Â and they have killed directly or indirectly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in this war of conquest, colonialism and mass murder. While not all of these deaths were American K.I.A., they do represent the total amount of dead in the theatre and general area of theÂ Iraq war zone. Some are suicides; some are accidents; most, however, areÂ combat deaths that would not have occurred if Mr George W. Bush and his acolytes such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, junior senator from New York, had not supported such an immoral and unjust military preemptive action.

Dr Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

I would echo the sentiments of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is being used to Willy Horton the mildly progressiveÂ Senator Barack Obama, with his “god-damn America” sermon. I think if there is a heavenly engineer it would damn this country for its wars, use of torture, extraordinary renditions of alleged terror suspects, death penalty, Jim Crow, slavery,Â lack of universal health careÂ and other egregious failings.

I think a Supreme Being, if there is such an entity, should not bless this country but indeed damn it with its violent efforts to secure fossil fuels, to advance Israeli interests and support of its terrorism against the long-suffering and devastated Palestinian people.

This Iraq War proves that those who opposed Vietnam were right. This is a nation drunk with blood, paranoid if it cannot dominate and power maximise a hegemonic control over the world. This is a nation that tricks Joe and Jane Six Pack into believing that supporting the troops means sending them to kill and be killed in various hyperpower adventures.

This is a nation that refers to Palestinian Terrorism and not Israeli mass murder, radical jihad and not the frenetic zionism of neo-conservatives, Iranian expansionism despite the absence of Iran military forces in ANY third country. The hypocrisy is blatant.

On this day of 4,000 American military personnel having perished, I think of Reverend Wright’s brilliant statement that the United States used nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki and never gave it a thought, never apologised, never reflected on this genocide. I noted the reverend’s denunciation of those evil, city-busting nuclear attacks was shown over and over on cable television. I found his comments to be courageous, accurate and appropriate in tone and substance.

I hope that when the accounting for this latest war is tallied, there is more than another war memorial eating into the precious real estate of the Mall in Washington, D. C. in which we memorialise the sacrifice of the troops without questioning the rationale of those evil American elites that sent them to war. I hope that eventually the smug arrogance of American imperialism will lead to criminal prosecution of America’s senior civilian and military leadership. I hope there are a million Reverend Wrights who are not deployed by a cheerleading white dominated media, to silence a candidate who dares question American military action or to marginalise, in a racist manner, a candidate who is slightly more reflective of the need to change American foreign relations. We need candidates for the presidency who are not parroting the robotic vital center that is non-partisan in its racism, imperialism and marginalisation of creative dissent.